


In The Crypt

by spacephobic



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 22:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16543280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacephobic/pseuds/spacephobic
Summary: Matt and Karen talk while stuck in the crypt





	In The Crypt

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you like it! 
> 
> It seemed obvious that they talked more than what we were shown, so I filled in the gaps. With fluff.
> 
> It could probably do with some more proof-reading and editing, so please excuse any mistakes. I'll update, when I've had time to work on it some more!

“Get in here.” He said standing next to the sarcophagus he’d just opened. "It's ok, it's empty."

She didn’t hesitate, no time to, when even she could hear the commotion from dozens of agents above. It would only be a few minutes until they would search the crypt, too.

She wanted to stop and freeze at the thought of squeezing into the tight space with Matt. Not only was she too angry still, but now he was, too. Angry, that her actions had brought him here and made him give up his chance to go after Fisk.

But, instead of working through anything she was feeling, she was busy arranging herself in the sarcophagus while Matt waited to get in after her.

The rustling noises had stopped and her breathing evened out slightly so he stepped into the narrow space next to her, lay down and pulled the heavy stone lid into place above them.

In the quiet, airless and dark place they suddenly shared his head landed on something softer than stone. Her arm. His right arm, still wrapped in the heavy ropes, was trapped between their bodies as was hers and so his left had no place to go but around her waist, where he rested it lightly, taking care not to touch her with his fingers. Which he wanted to desperately. By her mere presence she always did this to him – making him feel exposed and transparent. She always seemed to look right through him and his carefully maintained defences. It put him off-balance. Was that what love did to people? He didn’t know.

They lay quietly for a few minutes, their their bodies pressed against each other. With his ear on her arm he could hear her blood roaring through her and her heartbeat, though slower now, still hammering loudly.

“Karen,” he whispered and her heart immediately picked up pace again, “I’m sorry.”

“About what?” she choked out the question. “This is my fault. If I hadn’t…”

“No, no, not about this here, about…everything else, everything I’ve put you through, letting you believe I was…”

Karen stopped breathing. “Dead? Why did you?”

“I guess, because I felt like I was. I mean, I was barely conscious for weeks after it happened, injured and with the nuns taking care of me. I’d lost the hearing in my right ear, most of my other senses. I was totally helpless and that’s not something I deal with well.”

She had started shivering slightly against him and he realised it was because, as he was whispering to her about what he had gone through after Midland Circle, his fingers had started to move lightly against her ribs of their own accord needing to calm her.

Her heart ached for him, for both of them, her anger at his ‘death’ momentarily taking a back seat. Did he still not get it? She leaned her head forward slightly until she felt the stubble on his chin against her hairline.  

“You didn’t have to go through all this alone, you know. I… Foggy and I would have been there for you. We...” she swallowed hard, forcing out the words she knew he needed to hear, “love you. We’re family. That’s how it works.”

Her right hand, trapped between their bodies, uncurled and came to rest on his heart, the gesture mirroring the night months ago, when he had told her about being Daredevil. It was pounding as fast as hers. Only fair, she thought, he can hear mine and probably deduce a lot more from all sorts of signals she was giving him.  
He moved his head until his lips rested against her forehead, kissed it softly. “I know you would have been there. But I didn’t think I deserved that. I hurt you so much, on so many levels, I thought I deserved to be alone, you know.”

“Yeah, I know, I get it, I mean, I just wish you hadn’t felt that way, I guess. Needing to shut us all out.”

“Me, too,” he said as he covered her hand resting on his heart.

Suddenly his body tensed against hers, he lifted his head, alert to outside noises much more than she was. “Okay, they’re gone.” With little help from her he shifted the heavy stone lid to the side and they climbed out.

The quiet intimacy of their hiding place disappeared in an instant and the situation at hand demanded their presence of mind. But, something had happened in those moments they had just shared. Shifted. Maybe it was the physical closeness thrust upon them by the circumstances. One thing she knew, whatever it was she would have to tell him about Wesley soon, if not now. He would want to know anyway why Fisk was even after her. She felt physically ill at the thought of giving up her secret to Matt. Foggy was one thing, but Matt? And should she tell him about Kevin, too?

Matt was listening intently and repeated: “All right, they’re gone. I guess we’ll just wait here until they leave.” He walked a few steps away from the sarcophagus then sat down on the two low steps to the side. “Why is Fisk hunting you?”

“Had a plan. Went to go see him.”

“You went to see Fisk?” His brows narrowed and he sounded incredulous.

“Yeah, I thought maybe I could provoke him, turn his emotions against him.”

“To what end?”

“Make him attack me in front of the FBI.”

“Jesus, Karen.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, it didn’t work. He caught me off guard, asked me how long I’d known your…secret. I swear I tried, but he just… He read it in my face.”

“You tried to outsmart Fisk? Provoke him into making a mistake?”

“Fine, okay, right. You’re right. I was an idiot. Sorry.”

“No, you were brave.”

Karen paused, stunned at his assessment. Not exactly the response she expected from him. Now or never, she thought, ordering herself to finally tell him her secret. He was alive. He was here. What if she didn’t get another chance? “Anyway, he didn’t take the bait.”

“What was the bait?”

Her voice when she started speaking sounded shaky and small even to herself. Her heart was racing, but if he was listening he didn’t have a visible reaction.

“I told him a secret of my own.” She took a deep breath, scoffed at herself, shook her head and took another deep breath. The words needed to come out – now, she ordered herself. “You remember that friend he had that got shot? Uh, Wesley? I killed him.” Her voice broke with that last sentence and she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. ”That’s why he sent Poindexter after me. I was stupid and… and reckless, and now Father Lantom is dead because of it. Because of… because of me.”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Matt was stunned. He wasn’t used to things just slipping by him. Memories rushing back from the time Wesley was killed. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed anything. Or had he? She had been upset, late one night at the office back then and told him the world had fallen apart. He hadn’t known her that well yet back then and remembered letting it go, mostly because he’d been too distracted by his own crap. Selfish, again, thought. Maybe she would have told him, if he’d just…

Karen wiped her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her hoodie. “I don’t know… you…you always, uh, treated me like I was innocent. It was nice. It was nice that you thought of me like that.” She paused again and out of the corner of her eye she glanced at Matt, whose face was full of regret and guilt. He hung his head.

“What were you gonna do to Fisk?”

He took a deep breath. “Kill him. Your turn to judge me.”

"No. No, I’m not. I get it. Trust me. Just makes me, uh, makes me sad for you." 

"It has to be done, Karen." 

No, she thought, and with sudden resolve, she pushed away from the stone column she’d been leaning on and walked over to him. She crouched down in front of him, putting her hands on his arm above the ropes, needing the physical connection to him for what she would say next. “Okay, you’re gonna have to listen to me here. Okay, listen to me. Okay, I never told you why I left Vermont, right? Why I left _home_. Okay, see, there was a car crash. And, um, I killed my brother, uh, because I was, I was high, and I was drunk and I was angry…"  

"Jesus, Karen…," he whispered quietly and hung his head. He could imagine her guilt and pain – not so unlike his own - and wished he could undo the past for her. But it didn’t change his resolve to do what he must to assuage his own. "And I shouldn’t have been driving, and it changed everything.” She took shaky breaths in between her words but forced them out despite herself. Her fingers fidgeted on his arm, but her voice was steady when she continued. “No matter what I do there is no atoning for that. Okay? There is no way to come back from it." 

"What if it is the way back? For me? I can’t let Fisk go." 

"Killing anyone - even Fisk - it will change everything that you - that you feel about yourself."

“There is no other way.” His head, already hanging low from listening to her intent words, moved forward the last two inches to lean against hers.

“I’m so sorry, Karen, for everything you’ve been through. I wish you had come to me, about Wesley, when it happened.” He put his hand on her arm and squeezed lightly.

He lifted his head away from her and stroked his fingers over her blood soaked sleeve. “Karen, are you hurt?”  
“What, no, I don’t know…” She looked down at the arm he was holding. “I didn’t notice.”

“I’ll clean this and wrap it up for you. I just need to get these ropes off first.”

“Uh, here, let me do it.” She couldn’t stand the idea of not touching him, so she sat down next to him and took his arm before he could object. Unwrapping the ties was soothing and a welcome change from the emotional upheaval of the last minutes. He must have thought so too, because he leaned his back on the wall behind him, his posture relaxed.

The task helped distract her from everything that had transpired between them since Poindexter attacked. But, it also gave rise to some of her other feelings. Holding his arm on her lap undoing the intricately tied ropes, she bit her lip at the sudden onslaught of emotion. "Karen…?" he sat up, immediately aware of the change in her.

She didn't look up and busied her hands with the ropes instead. "I thought you were dead," she choked out, "I thought I'd never see you again." Her head sank onto his arm, her shoulders shaking with teary breaths as she tried to get a hold of herself and failing miserably. His hand though still mostly covered in rope caressed her knee where it lay. He leaned forward getting as close as he could to where she was hiding her face against his arm and whispered to her. "You know, I went to my apartment, after getting in touch with Foggy, before I came to see you? And you know what? As I stood there, I could tell it hadn't been long since you'd been there. Your perfume was still in the air and then, uh, then I noticed the letters, opened, neatly piled up on the table. All my stuff still there. So…," he smiled, almost desperate now for her to stop crying. Over him. And what a selfish asshole he’d been. "I know that's not true. Why would you be taking care of my apartment, pay my bills, if you really thought I was...gone?"

She cleared her throat and lifted her head just enough to lean it against his temple. "Foggy thought I’d lost it and to be honest, I wasn't convinced of my own sanity anymore either. I kept telling myself to stop, it had been months…but, there was no body and so I kept thinking ‘what if’, what if you weren’t... hoping against hope, I guess…"  
“Thank you,” he said quietly, “for believing in me…and, you know, paying my rent.” He smiled again. She gave him a teary but wry smile back and resumed her work on the ropes, unwinding them carefully through his fingers and around his hand and arm. By the time she was finished with both, she felt steadier again. Probably, she thought, because his arm was still laying across her legs with his thumb drawing circles on her knee and – judging by body language – enjoying their closeness.

When she was done, he pulled off the gloves protecting his fingers from the rope and got up slowly and groaning quietly as his body started to register the latest abuse it had taken.

“Come on, your turn – there’s some bandages up on that shelf by the bed.” He got up and stretched his hand out to her in an offer to help her up. She took his hand and pulled herself up close to him. When he would have let go of her she held him in place by his hand and stepped in closer needing the physical contact just for a minute longer. He stood still and questioningly tilted his head as she had seen him do before and took one more, small step to bury her face against the side of his neck. Breathing him in. Alive. His arms came around her in an instant. He pulled her closer letting the raw emotions she always brought out in him take over just this moment. They stood, holding each other close in the dim light of the church walls until Karen lifted her head just enough to whisper: “I missed you.”

“Karen,” now it was his turn to draw a shaky breath. “God, I missed you, too.” He revelled in their closeness he’d for so long he had denied himself, and her, a little longer then ran his hands down her arms. “Let me take care of your arm.”

He pulled her towards a bench on the other side of the crypt by her hand. “Sit here, I’ll be right back.”

She took off the hoodie while he gathered the supplies he needed. He sat facing her on the low bench, gently held her arm and administered to the cut she sustained. She couldn’t take her eyes off his hands and face, so focussed on her. “Thank you,” she said quietly. He didn’t look up from his task just nodded his head slightly in acknowledgment then tensed, briefly pausing and listening before relaxing again, but not fully. “What? What is it?” Karen whispered but he simply resumed wrapping the bandage. He was no less gentle with her arm, yet he seemed completely changed. She observed him curiously but was distracted by fast approaching footsteps and Sister Maggie’s small frame appearing in front of them. She seemed to gather herself for a second. “Thank God,” she said, “it’s not safe for you to come out yet.”

Karen turned her attention back to Matt as he was fastening the bandage before lightly stroking his hand down her arm and getting up. “Yeah,” he said, “we know, I can hear ‘em,” the hostile undertone and the fact he turned his back on Sister Maggie, and Karen, almost immediately not lost on either of the women. Apparently trying to get as far away as possible he sat down on the bed in the corner.

“I can come back with food, but in the meantime you should get cleaned up. We have fresh clothes – donations for the poor.” Sister Maggie hurried away, gathering clothes from a box to the side and clearly trying to downplay the awkwardness of Matt’s cold reaction to her. “Uh, thank you,” Karen said, as Matt’s change in mood permeated the atmosphere in the room, and walked over to her to find something to wear.

As Karen and Sister Maggie – his _mother_ – he thought bitterly were dealing with the clothes, Matt was sitting on the bed watching them both. He’d have to tell Karen, and Foggy, about her, but right now he was too angry with _her_. He didn’t want her here. The enormity of the lie overwhelmed him still. She’s taken care of him when he was a kid at the orphanage and these last few months. How could she have kept this a secret from him? He got up, pacing, trying to concentrate on something else, listening to the noises from upstairs and the very real danger he and Karen were facing. He didn’t have time for this.

“These should fit you.” Sister Maggie held out a pile of clothes to him as he walked around the crypt, but he couldn’t… so he ignored her and pretended to concentrate on perceiving what was happening upstairs. Behind him he heard Karen exhaling loudly, telling him that what he had done hadn’t escaped her notice. Shit.

“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Sister Maggie said behind him, “you’ll be safe here.”

“No, we won’t,” Matt answered turning towards them, “they brought in search dogs.”

Karen snapped to attention at his words. “Alright so what do we do? We can’t stay.”

“We need to buy some time…and we need a plan to get you out of here,” he said.

“I...I could try to divert them, the dogs, away from the crypt?” Sister Maggie suggested.

“Yeah…yeah,” Karen could practically see the wheels turning in Matt’s head. “Tell them you saw me at the orphanage, or better, bring them someone else to tell them they saw me there. They might start suspecting you otherwise.” His tone was rough and he himself could hear the coldness and distance in it. Sister Maggie glanced at the impassive expression on Matt’s face then hurried away. There was no time to lose now.

Once she was out of sight Matt let out pent up breath. He could hear Karen but she kept her distance for now clearly having sensed the change in him and weary of him again. He kept pacing around the small space trying to get himself back under control. He felt like he might lose it any second.

The air was heavier now in the crypt, whereas before it had provided them with a measure of safety and comfort, he now felt caged. No time for this, he told himself again, make a mistake and you’re gonna get her killed. And yourself. But that was only an afterthought.

Another secret, Karen thought, but only if you let it be. He didn’t know she knew about Sister Maggie - that was pretty clear. She understood on some level that he needed time to process this, but couldn’t fathom the impact it had on him to find out his mother had not just been in Hell’s Kitchen all these years, but _in his life_ since he had been a child. And never told him. Her heart ached for him and at the same time his instinctive reaction to withdraw completely and shut everyone out triggered her own anger and frustration with him. This time, she decided, she wouldn’t let him get away with it. They’d been here before and she was _done_ with Matt’s emotional diversion tactics. Even more so after their closeness today. Use two hands, Karen, she told herself.

She was staring at Matt’s back, her arms crossed in defiance of the distance he’d put between them, but he seemed oblivious to her. Or pretended to be. Periodically turning his head discerning the noises from upstairs then pacing again.

Finally, his back still turned to her he said: “Yeah, they’re taking the dogs next door – buys us some time.” He walked over to the bed, where the clothes Sister Maggie had left lay and Karen walked towards him as he was stripping of the blood soaked shirt he was wearing.

Karen watched him pull the shirt over his head and was momentarily distracted by his bruised and battered body. “Jesus, Matt,” she said as she watched him pull off the shirt and replace it with the clean one while groaning at the pain the movements caused him.

“Couldn’t put it on in front of her?” she crossed her arms again while he unbuckled his belt to tuck the shirt in. “You know, something just kinda hit me. Watching you wall yourself off from her.” Her voice was calm, but her heart was hammering away. Confronting Matt when his defences were up was never easy, but she was determined to not let him get away with this anymore.

“You know?” she could tell he wasn’t happy, but did his best to keep the annoyance he felt about her knowing about Sister Maggie out of his voice.

“Ah, yeah. She told me.” Matt scoffed. She had told Karen after meeting her what? Twice? It felt like a bad joke that she would have told Karen, when she hadn’t even told him – he’d had to find out by himself. “Said she felt ashamed about what she did. And that everyone you ever cared about left you.”

Ashamed? Matt’s attempts at keeping his temper in check failed at her words.

“Can we _not_ do this now?”

Instead of backing away as he so obviously wanted her to judging by his gesturing, she doubled down and took another step towards him. “Is that why you insist on doing everything alone?”

“I don’t insist on doing…”

“…pushing Foggy and me away.”

“I’m not pushing you away - I’ve told you, I’m trying to protect you, Karen…”

“I don’t think you’re trying to protect us, I think you’re trying to protect yourself.”

“You wanna talk about this right now? There are people trying to kill us…”

“You know, look… this might be our only chance…”

“…and you wanna-”

“Just _shut up_ for a second, Matt, okay?” Matt stood silent and still as she vented her anger at not only his treatment of her, but of best friend and wondered how to defend himself now that his anger didn’t stop her.

“Look, I was _never_ gonna leave you up there, and I’m not leaving you now. Neither will Foggy. Despite the fact that you’ve been a complete asshole to him, he’d still follow you over a cliff.”

He was more than grateful when Karen’s mentioning of Foggy suddenly made him think of a solution to their more pressing problem. He went through the options quickly and – acknowledging to himself that he knew Foggy really wouldn’t let them down – decided on a plan.

“Yeah. Okay,” he said more to himself than to Karen, who still stood in front of him seething with anger and now bewildered at his out-of-character reaction to her outburst.

“So, what, you agree?”

“That could actually work,” he said out loud while working out the details of the plan in his head.

“I don’t get it. What could work?” _He_ was infuriating.

“Foggy.”

“What about him?” she asked impatiently.

“I’ll call him to escort you out as your lawyer. Poindexter won’t be able to get to you while he’s there. You’ll be safe.”

“What will you do? You can’t come out with me…”

“I’ll get out another way while everyone upstairs is busy taking you into custody. I’ll meet you and Foggy, tonight, afterward you gave your statement. On the roof across the road.” Not waiting for her to agree, he pulled his phone out.

Karen waited while he gave instructions to Foggy on the phone. Their short time alone together was running out fast and after the emotional rollercoaster they’d been through she wasn’t about to give up now.

“So, are you just going to ignore everything else I just said?”

Despite himself he almost had to smile. She was like a dog with a bone, never giving up. The anger he had felt only a few minutes earlier dissipated as quickly as it had come over him.

He walked over to where she stood with her arms still crossed and laid his hands on her upper arms gently.  
“Karen, we _will_ talk – when all this is over. I promise, this isn’t our only chance. I…I’ll make it up to you, everything… I’ll even let you shout at me some more.”

“Yeah, well, you have a history of not keeping your promises, so I don’t know...”

“…right now I’m also trying to keep the first one I ever made to you – keeping you safe. Can you let me do that, please?” He moved his arms around her shoulders pulling her into him, holding her close and hers unfolded to close around his waist. She laid her head on his shoulder, took a deep breath and relaxed into the embrace. “Okay. Just, Matt, until then, remember that you’re not alone…please, for me.”

His arms tightened around her in response to the sudden well of emotion he felt. “Yes,” he said and lowered his head to kiss her temple. She lifted her head at the affectionate gesture and unwound her arms to lay her hands on his chest, his heart, to feel it pounding, fast but steady. No lie.

She leaned forward to kiss his cheek but he was faster and before she realised fully what was happening she felt his lips, soft and gentle against hers. His right hand moved to around her waist anchoring her to him and his left covered hers on his heart. Karen’s other hand came up to stroke his cheek then settled on his pulse racing under her fingertips as they kissed like two people drowning.

When they finally stopped neither of them wanted to let go, but the world would not stop for them. It was just a few more seconds before Matt sighed and said, “Why don’t you get changed, it won’t be long now.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’ll just be a minute.”

Knowing she was about to get undressed, he couldn’t resist following her over to the bed. Unlike the last time she had undressed in front of him she turned her back to him as she pulled the thin pullover over her head. She knew he couldn’t see her, but wondered nevertheless what he could sense and not for the first time since he told her about his alter ego. Caught up in her thoughts she didn’t noticed how close he’d come until she felt his warm breath on her shoulder. She shuddered at the sensation on her bare skin and he closed the last distance between them and pressed his body to her back from head to toe his arms sliding around her waist. “Karen,” his voice was a low whisper but it carried such longing and desire, she came undone. “Matt,” she whispered back and hoped he heard her voice mirror the feeling in his own. “I don’t deserve you,” he continued, breathing her in and lowered his face into the curve of her neck.

Reality intruded rudely, she felt the change in Matt’s body even before he spoke. “I wish we had more time, but I can hear Foggy outside, so I gotta leave now and you have to wait here until it’s okay to go up.” He didn’t want to let go but had to anyway, so pulled gently pulled himself away from her and instead grabbed the shirt she had picked earlier and held it out for her to put on.

She turned towards him, picked up the black mask he’d taken off earlier from the bed. Instead of handing it to him she pulled it over his head and eyes herself before kissing him softly once more. “Go. I’ll be fine,” she reassured him and ran her hand down his chest one last time.

“I’ll meet you in couple of hours, on the roof, like I said.”

“I know. Take care, please.”

“And you, Karen,” he said before lightly kissing her forehead the turning and walking off quickly into the darkness.

 


End file.
